Archive for the Life & All That Jazz Category

It doesn’t matter how well it ends… or rather how well it appears to end. There are always hurt feelings to sort through.

I like to think of myself as enlightened and self aware. I like believing that I am above hard feelings and being hurt. I like to think that knowing the truth is better than believing a lie. And I know it is better to be single than be in a relationship with someone who isn’t there, who you have doubts about, who has stopped pursuing and connecting with me. But none of that matters because when a relationship ends, even when it ends well, there is no way to not hurt, question, or wonder.

Women and men are different in how they deal with things. Men’s hearts are like long unending hallways with rooms on either side. With men, problems are put in a room. If the problem is dealt with the door is closed, locked, and not revisited. If the problem is not dealt with the door is open to the hallway and whatever garbage is in that room festers and stinks up the hallway until it is taken care of and closed off from the rest of his world. Simple. Women are nothing like that.

Women’s hearts are like warehouses with endless rows of shelves. Problems, hurts, fears, events, feelings… These aren’t locked up and closed away, they’re put into boxes that are meticulously labeled, cross referenced, and organized on those shelves. Only a thin piece of cardboard lies between those things and woman. That which is undealt with litters the floors so she trips, slips, falls, fusses over it until she resolves it and stacks it away with the rest. But even when everything from this event is resolved, that trip to the shelves is a trip down memory lane. Every other hurt received at the end of every other relationship, even if this relationship has not brought any hurts, are revisited once that new box is brought to the shelf. Every doubt, fear, insecurity, angry word, betrayal is revisited simply by proximity in the warehouses of our hearts.

I am no different than every other woman. It makes no difference that this last relationship ended in the friendship from which it began. It doesn’t matter that I know he wasn’t investing in the relationship because his hallway had some royal stink from a couple rooms full of issues that hadn’t been dealt with. I was still hurt because my warehouse was clean, organized, put away. My warehouse was spotless but the smells from his hallway penetrated it anyway. And cleaning up after our unhappy ending left me revisiting that awful corner of my own heart filled with the pains left behind every time I haven’t been the one that was chosen.

That’s what the matter is right now: I know that I wasn’t chosen. And no matter how well this relationship ended, not being chosen always hurts because it means a trip to that corner of my warehouse.

Whenever one relationship ends, there exists a time where feelings seem to be so strong that there isn’t a way to find the end of one and the beginning of another. But as time passes and healing takes place, all the thoughts and feelings become painfully clear. Sometimes this time is like a roller coaster of emotion as all that was buried rises to the surface, scattered and long after the wounds were made, like bubbles in the middle of the ocean after an eruption on the ocean floor. Happily, once surfaced, they are acknowledged and dismissed and freedom exists once more, like the day a cast is finally removed. This is a chronicle of just such a time. Although deeply personal, I am sharing these because I never want to forget what it is to be alive. The words escaped as the last bits of emotional connection were expelled and total freedom was mine once more. Despite the sometimes darkness associated with the words, the time to reflect upon and acknowledge the pain was freeing and peace bringing.

The Storm began
Blowing away the calm
Forcing all signs of Life into hiding
Hiding what stars would otherwise shine in the darkness
One thunderous blow after another
As wave upon wave of storm
Crash down upon me
I’m stuck
Stranded
Waiting it out is the only option
And waiting for signs of Life to return
For the calm to return
The Storm to end
For the moment when the clouds break
When the stars return
For a short time
Before
The light comes again
And ends the night
The long, stormy night